DC Sick Leave Law: Accrual, Covered Uses, and Retaliation

The DC sick leave law, formally the Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act of 2008, requires most employers in the District to give employees paid time off that accrues from the first day of work. You earn between three and seven paid days per calendar year depending on how many people your employer has on payroll, and you can begin using that leave once you have completed 90 days on the job. The law is codified at D.C. Code § 32-531.01 through § 32-531.12.

Who Is Covered

If you perform work in the District for pay, you are almost certainly covered. Where your employer is headquartered does not matter.

The statute pulls a narrow set of workers out of coverage:

Independent contractors, who are not employees for purposes of the Act.
Full-time students who work for their own accredited college or university, work fewer than 25 hours per week, and do not replace a covered employee.
Unpaid volunteers at educational, charitable, religious, or nonprofit organizations.
Elected or appointed lay members performing religious functions for a religious organization.
Casual babysitters working in or around the employer’s home.¹

The babysitter exclusion is narrow. If you work as a housekeeper, home health aide, or nanny on a regular schedule, you are not a casual babysitter and you may still qualify.

How Much Leave You Earn

Accrual rates depend on your employer’s size, calculated using the average monthly number of full-time equivalent employees from the prior calendar year.²

Employers with 100 or more employees: one hour of paid leave for every 37 hours worked, up to 7 days per calendar year.
Employers with 25 to 99 employees: one hour for every 43 hours worked, up to 5 days per year.
Employers with 24 or fewer employees: one hour for every 87 hours worked, up to 3 days per year.

Hours accrue from your first day, whether you work full-time or part-time. You cannot actually use them until you have completed 90 consecutive days of employment.²

Tipped Restaurant and Bar Workers

If you work at a restaurant or bar and regularly receive tips or gratuities on top of a base wage below the DC minimum, you accrue at one hour for every 43 hours worked, up to 5 days per year, regardless of employer size. When you use that leave, your employer must pay you at the full DC minimum wage, not your tipped base wage.²

Leaving and Returning to a Job

Employers do not have to pay out unused sick leave when you leave. If the same employer rehires you within one year, your unused accrued leave must be reinstated and you can use it immediately without waiting another 90 days. Past a year, the employer can start you over as a new hire.³

What You Can Use the Leave For

Sick leave covers your own or a family member’s physical or mental illness, injury, or medical condition, and preventive care such as routine checkups and dental visits.²

Safe leave covers absences related to domestic violence, sexual abuse, or stalking against you or a family member. You can use it to seek medical attention, get counseling, work with a victim services organization, relocate, or participate in related legal proceedings.²

The definition of family member is broad. It includes a spouse or domestic partner; children, foster children, and grandchildren; parents, siblings, in-laws, and the spouses of your children or siblings; anyone who lives with you and with whom you have maintained a committed relationship for at least the preceding 12 months; and a child who lives with you and for whom you have permanently assumed parental responsibility.¹

Notice and Documentation

For foreseeable leave, give your employer at least 10 days’ notice, or as early as possible if 10 days is not feasible.⁴

For emergencies, notify your employer before the start of your next shift or within 24 hours of the emergency, whichever comes first.⁴ The “whichever comes first” language matters. If your next shift starts eight hours after you land in the emergency room, that shift is your deadline.

Your employer can ask for reasonable certification only for absences of three or more consecutive days. For medical leave, a signed document from a licensed health care provider is enough. For safe leave, acceptable documentation includes a police report, a court order, or a signed statement from a victim advocate or domestic violence counselor. You provide it when you return to work, not before.⁵

Any documentation you turn in is confidential. Your employer cannot disclose it without your consent unless a court orders it or another law requires it.⁵

Retaliation Is Prohibited

Your employer cannot fire, demote, discipline, or otherwise discriminate against you for using accrued leave, for filing a complaint, for cooperating with an investigation, or for informing a coworker about their rights under the Act.⁶

Attendance policies that count paid sick leave as an absence subject to discipline are unlawful on their face. Point-based attendance systems that assign points when you call in sick using accrued leave violate the Act.⁶

If your employer takes an adverse action against you within 90 days of your complaint or exercise of rights, the law presumes a violation. The employer then has to prove the action was unrelated to your leave use.⁶

Employers can still enforce policies against improper use of leave and can request more frequent certifications if there is evidence of a pattern of abuse.

What Your Employer Owes If They Break the Law

An employer that denies leave you were entitled to use owes you $500 in damages for each day of leave denied, on top of any wages you lost. That applies whether you took the day off unpaid or came in anyway.⁷

Willful violations carry civil penalties per affected employee: $1,000 for a first offense, $1,500 for a second, and $2,000 for a third or subsequent offense.

A court or agency can also order back pay, reinstatement, compensatory and punitive damages, reasonable attorney’s fees, and interest. The Mayor can revoke or suspend an employer’s permits and business licenses until the violation is corrected.⁷

How to Report a Violation

You can file a complaint with the DC Department of Employment Services, which the statute names as the enforcement agency.⁶ The DC Office of the Attorney General also enforces worker rights and may pursue sick leave violations on its own.

You can also file your own civil action. A prevailing employee can recover back pay, reinstatement, compensatory and punitive damages, and attorney’s fees.⁷ Between the per-day damages and the fee-shifting, even a short denial can be worth pursuing.

If a dispute arises over how much leave you have accrued, the employer carries the recordkeeping burden. Holding onto your own pay stubs and any written leave requests is a sensible backup.

Not to Be Confused With DC Universal Paid Leave

The Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act is separate from the DC Universal Paid Leave Act, codified at D.C. Code § 32-541.01 and following. Accrued sick leave is short-term paid time off that comes directly from your employer and accrues based on hours worked. Universal Paid Leave provides longer-term wage replacement benefits, funded by an employer payroll tax and paid by the District government, for parental leave, family caregiving, and your own serious health condition.⁸ The two can be used together: accrued sick leave for a few days of flu, Universal Paid Leave for weeks of recovery or a new child.

1
D.C. Law Library. D.C. Code 32-531.01 – Definitions
2
D.C. Law Library. D.C. Code 32-531.02 – Provision of Paid Leave
3
D.C. Law Library. D.C. Code Subchapter III – Employee Sick Leave
4
D.C. Law Library. D.C. Code 32-531.03 – Notification
5
D.C. Law Library. D.C. Code 32-531.04 – Certification
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D.C. Law Library. D.C. Code 32-531.08 – Prohibited Acts
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D.C. Law Library. D.C. Code 32-531.12 – Enforcement and Penalties
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D.C. Law Library. D.C. Code 32-541.01 – Definitions